Five jobs and the Toronto housing struggles that come with them(The Star Health)

26 june 2019 20:56:21

They staff the go-to neighbourhood bistros, race to the scene when there´s a serious collision and they assist the city´s most vulnerable residents. Increasingly though, the workers who make Toronto a great place to live can´t afford to live here, themselves.Although it is a pervasive challenge, the Toronto Region Board of Trade mapped the affordable housing options of five job classes - paramedics, social services staff, construction formworkers, kitchen and grocery retail workers.The maps illustrate how limited the city´s housing choices are.To stay within the recommended 30 to 40 per cent of household income for shelter, most would need to live far from the core. Only the highest earners among them - the paramedics and builders - could afford a condo.Many Torontonians working in career jobs are living like college students with roommates. Couples are giving up the dream of home ownership and families are coming to terms with raising their kids in apartments.Read more:They cook Toronto´s food, and build its houses - but can they afford to live here?About 1,400 of Toronto´s subsidized housing units sit empty each day as city struggles with waiting list, auditor general saysCould Toronto´s laneway homes create the character-filled streets of the future?ParamedicMedian annual salary: $91,256After tax income: $67,208Monthly after-tax income: $5,601Housing costs at 30 per cent of income: $1,680Housing costs at 50 per cent of income: $2,800Three years ago, Goran Mevic, 34, left his job as a full-time advanced care paramedic and acting superintendent in Ottawa, earning about $109,000, to live in Toronto with his girlfriend and be closer to family in Waterloo, Ont.But under the Toronto paramedic system, he works only part-time in a primary care position.`As soon as I got here the whole idea of settling down and buying a place - that´s kind of changed,` he said.Mevic lived alone in the capital, never paying more than $1,300 a month in rent for a two-bedroom place in th ...